Last weekend my wife and I picked up a 1990 Maristar 240 SC project. In it's current state is a minimally functional fiberglass and rotted vinyl contraption in desperate need of some TLC. Tomorrow will be the first full day of decent weather I have to actually dive into this monster and see how much more than I had originally thought needs to be done. As of now this is what I do know:

1. 351w Indmar motor idled, but would die with any throttling. I have the holley renew kit to rebuild the carbs and the carbs are off. After pulling the carbs I saw more rust in intake manifold than I would have liked so I removed that as well for a little parts wash.

2. Velvet Drive 1.52:1 is being lubricated by pepto. Tomorrow it comes out and thanks to this forum I have seen a couple of ideas for how to get that beast off the motor. Fortunately a buddy runs a transmission shop full of guys with boats. I can't complain about the price given for the rebuild. I know some of you have been able to replace the cooler and flush the trans several times with success, but seriously, this thing is 23 yrs. old and the price is too good not to just have it totally rebuilt.

3. Interior is trashed both the carpet and the vinyl. I will post some pictures tomorrow. My wife has decided that she is game for an attempt at tackling this project.

4. Like the majority of these boats I have been able to find it has been cursed with the miami vice green color. We are looking into options to rectify this, but so far it looks like we can get a vinyl wrap to cover the stripe for about $300-400 installed. Not a full wrap obviously but enough to bring this old monstercraft into the current decade. Once again not a bad deal.

5. The sliding door is actually in reasonably decent shape... minus the locking hardware that seems to be missing a piece or 5. If you have any ideas of how I might be able to get my hands on replacement hardware, or some other fix please let me know. If not, I am not too worried about this at the moment.

6. Electrical seems to be in decent shape other than the stereo and I am pretty sure the bilge pump or wiring is shot, not a big deal who need one of those anyway.

7. I have not spent a whole lot of time looking, but I can not seem to figure out how to get the vinyl panels off the inside of the gunwales. I have to assume there are screws accessed from inside the storage compartments, hopefully that will be more obvious tomorrow.

8.My fuel tank needs some help. I have about a 1/2 tank of fuel in it, but have no idea if it has been stabilized or how long it has been in there. Sadly I am afraid that I will be disposing of roughly 22 gallons of liquid gold in order to clean out the tank. I also see that my fuel pickup hose has deteriorated and that someone monkeyed with the Al fittings and cross threaded them. While I have all the interior out I might as well replace the fuel lines as well. I am basically of the mindset at this point that I do not want to have to tear this thing down like this again for a while, so I might as well replace anything that is or looks worn that is not easily accessible. Once weather gets good I would much rather be in it on the water than in it trying to fix this weeks problem.

9. I will be asking for lots of input, suggestions, opinions, help, and encouragement. And beer.

Get a can of DeOxit for the electrical connections. It'll do a great job of removing oxidation, dirt, and grease, and help keep those electrical gremlins away. The PO on my boat left the cover on one year with water under it, causing both mildew problems and electrical corrosion. To get all the gauges working and reading correctly again, I disconnected all the connectors, and hit'em with a shot of DeOxit which solved most of the problems. Afterwards, I had to pull the gauge cluster, loosen each of the wire nuts, hit'em with a bit more, and tightened everything back up. My voltmeter now reads the correct voltage, the temp meter the right temp, and the tach stopped going crazy every now and then. Hitting the bilge pump no longer causes all the gauges to drop by 20%.

Check the underwater gear. Get behind the boat, on the ground, and look at the rudder, prop, propshaft, and strut. Does everything look straight? Does the propshaft go through more-or-less the middle of the shaft log (where it goes through the hull)?

A good thing to do once in the life of the boat is to align the engine to the propshaft (see attached). This is a gross adjustment that controls how straight the propshaft is. The owner's manual alignment is a fine alignment that needs to be done yearly or so. It'll take you a couple of hours to do the full alignment the first time, so it's a nice afternoon job. Once you've done it, you won't need to do it again unless you run into something.

You might want to consider replacing the strut bearings while you're at it, and you'll have to re-pack the propshaft stuffing box also. Packing is about $15 for the GFO or $4 if you go for the flax packing, (but it's only good for 15 years or so ), and the strut bearings if you need them are about $70. A quick googling will get you everything you need to know about changing them out, but feel free to ask.

Check the steering. If it's not effortless, consider replacing the steering cable. It's a couple hundred dollars, but a bad one never gets better. Grease the rudder, and any other spots that the owners manual calls out. If you've got extra time, pull the rudder to clean out the old dried grease before doing so. Pull the starter and grease it. Make sure the blower and bilge pump work. Make sure all of the vent hoses going into the bilge are in good shape. Replace the raw water impeller.

Your local dealer, Skidim.com, or GreatLakesSkipper.com are great places to get parts.

By the way, the gasoline isn't a loss - just think of it as lawnmower fuel for the next five years.

Both of those suggestions are worth their weight in gold. This is my first inboard boat so keep that kind of info coming! The shaft seems straight and there does not seem to be any binding, however that alignment will be necessary when the trans goes back in. I will snap some pictures today and get them up. Thanks for the info and link Frank!

Welcome to Team Talk. It is always nice to see someone breathe life back into one of these beauties. My boat is also my first my first inboard and TT has been a great resource. You can learn everything you need to know about your boat here.

Ok, so thanks to some searching i figured out how to lift the motor and get the trans out. Easy enough actually though i am afraid i will need help getting it to the ground. Problem is i seem to have found a mixture o trans fluid/ oil/ h2o in the bottom of the bell housing. What is my next step? Obviously i need to suck that junk out but how do i determine where the motor oil came from?